Those in emotional pain long for that pain to stop, but that longing makes them more susceptible to pitches for products that allegedly will help but can do great harm. People who have been labeled seriously mentally ill are dying 15 to 25 years earlier than normal [1], and it is clear that this is largely because of the effects of the drugs they are given. [2] It's alarming enough when makers of deodorant, for instance, conceal the risks attendant on using their product; how much more reprehensible it is when marketers play not on the fear of having body odor but on the intense suffering of those who are likely to be advised to take powerful psychiatric drugs.

Before proceeding, it is essential to state that I believe that suffering people have the right to try anything to ease their pain, as long as two criteria are met - and they almost never are. Those criteria are:(1)The person recommending a treatment must learn about and disclose to the patient everything that is known about the potential benefits and potential kinds of harm that that treatment carries.(2)The person recommending a treatment must learn about and inform the patient about the whole array of things that have been helpful to those who have suffered in similar ways (not just the traditional, medicalized approaches but all approaches).

The concern about life-shortening medications applies beyond those who are clearly deeply troubled. A disturbing creep (more nearly, a leap) in the readiness with which professionals prescribe powerful psychiatric drugs and on the basis of decreasing indications that these drugs might even help has characterized the mental health field in recent decades. [3] As a result, what the drug companies call "antipsychotic" medications have been increasingly prescribed for people who show no signs of being out of touch with reality. A recent CBS story revealed that residents of nursing homes were being prescribed these drugs for no justifiable reason and that people were dying as a result. [4] Even some well-meaning therapists or family doctors have been known to prescribe these strong drugs for people whose suffering worried them, despite the fact that there was little or no reason to think that the drugs would help their particular kinds of pain.

Even if these drugs were rarely prescribed (which they are not) and only for those whose suffering fit certain criteria, anyone who is advised to ingest medication has a right to know the whole story about what might happen if they do so. It has been a well-kept secret that the drugs called antipsychotics carry a high risk of shortening life. And when evidence is presented that they carry this risk, many people find it hard to believe that that can be so; they assume that the Food and Drug Administration would never have allowed the chemicals to go on the market if that were true. Most people are not aware that the FDA does not require drug companies to provide evidence of drugs' effectiveness or harm over the long term. Indeed, drugs have often been approved on the basis of studies of only a matter of weeks or months.

In any case, the alarm must be sounded that such drugs dramatically shorten life span, often by decades, and the risk is even higher for patients taking more than one such drug.[5] Wouldn't you want to have the chance to choose whether to take something that might reduce your emotional pain but has a high risk of shortening your life by many years or instead to try other approaches?

The shortening of life is, of course, not the only problem caused by some medications. The dangers of failing to educate people about the effects of psychiatric and other drugs and about other options appears in the following first-person story, which arrived in my email inbox as I was writing this essay. Patrick Risser, who recently received the Voice award from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration of the federal government for his advocacy work, has kindly given his permission for me to include his story here and to give his contact information:

I was hospitalized in state hospital for the worst depression I'd ever experienced. I'd been hospitalized several times before but this was the worst. I was seriously suicidal and with all the precautions they took, I didn't see any easy way out. I'd had three heart attacks and I decided that the easiest way to die was to exercise my right to refuse medication(s) including my heart medicine. I quit taking all medications and then, miraculously I started to recover. Within weeks, I was well enough to leave the hospital. I fought and with assistance from an attorney, I received the right to leave. Afterward, I went through the PDR (Physician's Desk Reference) and looked up the medications. It turns out that one of the major effects of Inderal (a beta-blocker for my heart) is serious depression. Unfortunately, none of the psychiatrists ever looked beyond my behavior for a physical cause for my depression. My life was saved, perhaps literally, by being non-compliant and treatment resistant. I suspect that my heart problems were a result of my being compliant with over ten years of psychiatric medications that included Stelazine, Navane, Sinequan, Imipramine, Cogentin, Valium and Benadryl as a daily cocktail. I now warn people that compliance can kill (people receiving public mental illness services are dying over 25 years younger than the general population) and non-compliance can save lives.Patrick Risser patrickrisser@gmail.com, http://www.patrisser.com/

I've been on a variety of psychotropics for years for a variety of mental illnesses. Actually I think it's just one mystery mental illness , but the doctors have diagnosed me with schizotypal, bi-polar, borderline, and delusional disorder. I learned to walk across a balance beam in my living room to help cut down on the meds. Sometimes I freak out when I get too much junk mail and have to refill my old perscriptions.
The worst was when I was in the mental insitution. I think the doctors may have been experimenting on me. They were always pumping drugs down my throat saying, "This is just to help you relax," or "This is to make the itch go away". Always so many drugs. I think some of them made me feel like there were machines in my head.
I can't stop the drugs completely, I want to because they're bad, but I can at least cut down on them. I don't want to feel like I'm being experimented on again.

Recent articles in the New York Review of Books by Marcia Angell have made quite a stir, as has Robert Whitaker's book, Anatomy of an Epidemic. There are other books coming out now about this issue. When a young child died, and Sen. Grassley went after a psychiatrist who failed to disclose large industry payments and who failed to pay taxes on some of his outside income, it has broken the taboo and the fear people have had of Key Opinion Leaders (KOL's) who have had tremendous income and influence. Replacing the medications with lifestyle changes is challenging, but I believe moves in this direction are coming, and I have been active with groups in Portland working for such change, Re-Thinking Psychiatry, First, Do No Harm, and Hearing Voices Network.

For some time now I have asked how we can continue to drug people with drugs that we know is cutting their lives short by 15 - 25 years? Take for an example: We now know from the initial studies drug makers kept hidden for two decades that the SSRI/SNRI antidepressants are of no more benefit than a placebo, yet they produce horrific side effects including suicide and homicide. So my question is: Why on earth are the still on the market with a Risk to Benefit Ratio that is clearly down the toilet?!

Of course we all know the answer to that question is because these drugs have taken the sales of psychoactive drugs from an annual income of about $800,000 to $40 BILLION annually since their introduction! When you are talking that much profit, who cares about the 15-25 years patients are losing off their lives, right?

For a list of those who had their lives cut far shorter than the potential 15-25 years by these drugs, including those who never even took them, you can check out our database of SSRI cases by Googling SSRIstories.

After 20 years of specializing in the adverse reactions to SSRI/SNRIs I can tell you I am SICK of seeing lives cut short in every way possible as a result of these drugs! It is long past time to wake up from this serotonin-induced nightmare!

My son chose to leave this world after 10 years on psychiatri poison. My loss the loss of his beautiful presence will forever be an ache in my heart. Thank you for your article as I know it to be all too true. My healthy 6' son was admitted to a local hospital 6 months before his death because the last drug EFFEXOR - or a combination of all that came before caused his liver to totally shut down, his heart was enlarged and he was suffering from anemia. Not to mention his loss of bladder control and the "brain damage" that he told me he was suffering from.

Hi,
I would like to make a comment. Dr. Low 1937 founded a method to help people recover from what we call today mental illness.
As a veteran member I can asure you he was right on the mark about the cause and cure for this illness.

My question is why professionals who say they want the best for their patient don't send more patients to Recovery Inc.Also I rarely ever hear any psychiatrist even mention Dr. Low and his organization.
I would like to see every patient get a chance to recover from this condition through the Recovery Inc. method

I believe this is a very important issue that needs to be discussed, but would like to know specifically how the drugs are shortening patients' lifespans and what the patients are dying from. It would also be useful to show how these early deaths can be attributed to the medications as opposed to the illness itself. Are most of them suicides? Accidents? Heart attacks? Cancer? Diabetes? I feel any discussion about mortality rates and psychiatric drugs needs to include this information.

I provided references so that people could find more detail about this, but (1)no, they are not mostly from suicides; (2)not all the mechanisms are known, but among other things, it has been shown that increased rates of diabetes and heart problems are two common consequences; and (3)it is important to remember that calling the forms of emotional suffering "illnesses" comes from accepting the medical model, whereas there is very little evidence that the vast majority of emotional suffering have physiological causes, and there are enormous problems -- as even the authors of the psychiatric diagnostic handbook the DSM acknowledge -- in deciding what should be called a mental illness, how the varieties of emotional problems should be divided into categories, and what causes them.

there has been a explanation to what we now call mental illness Dr. Low found that the "working up process"is at the root of all chronic nervous symptoms reagrdless there present label.
If a patient cooperates with the will traingthey surely will get well.As far as meds go Recovery inc. does not offer advice either way.So if one can get well naturaly through will traing why bother with something toxic to you.

I have been on and off antidepressants since I was 16. Once I deal with my problems, I go off the drugs and I am a productive member of society. The tendency today is to feed you drugs and expect a persons mental wellness to miraculously recover because of the BS marketing ploy of the "chemical imbalance". When I'm on the drugs, I disassociate from reality, which I guess is the whole point, but it doesn't help me deal with any of the things in my life CAUSING the depression or anxiety.

The last time I attempted suicide (like every time), I was medicated. I wasn't going on or off any new doses. My meds were "stable". I firmly believe antidepressants cause an a-typical reaction to stressors. Do you wonder why so many people who commit mass murder are on an SSRI? I'm lucky in that I freak out internally and self-harm, rather than acting outwardly. I'm in a support group and so many of the people who have been on these drugs for years, just get more and more psychotropics piled on top of each other. What starts out as a problem with shyness or situational depression, becomes "bi-polar disorder" or "schizophrenia".

After that last suicide attempt, I lost everything. I refused to take any more meds and went off the SSRIs. It was not easy going off them, after having been on them (that time) for 3 years, but I did it. Two years later, I've gotten my life and mind back, and am finally able to be happy again. You can't find that in a pill. I'm not an expert, just a consumer of the system for the past 24 years. A good behavioral therapy program, lots of self-care and learning how to love yourself, and building a strong support system work better than any drug.

As a medical provider my greatest problem regarding antidepressants and medications like them is that patients ask for them (usually by name). I've been trying for more than a decade to educate my patients about the lack of benefit and the very real dangers associated with these medication, but they still insist that I prescribe them. Even after trying them without benefit, they often believe that they just need to try a different one; often one suggested by a friend or family member. No matter how I try to dissuade them, I'm not successful. If they don't get them from me, they just end up with a colleague down the hall who gives them the drug and I've lost a patient. There is no way a conciencious clinician can have a successful outcome when the patient wants these drugs. People have to become part of the solution. They have to quit asking for the drugs and/or accepting them when they are offered. I'd like to add that I am thankful for the work of Dr. Tracy and many others.

Dr. Griffith,
Thank you for writing. It is indeed disconcerting that patients beg for particular drugs. I understand that you consider this to be an ethical dilemma, because if they don't get the drugs from you, they get them from someone else. And I agree that consumers/patients need to stop believing the drug company propaganda, just as they need to stop believing that psych diagnosis is scientific. But -- although I realize there are some differences in the two situations -- if someone asked me for a gun, I would find it hard to justify giving it to them because of knowing that if I did not give it to them, they would get one from someone else. I am not saying yours is an easy position to be in, but I don't think you should have to act against your conscience. And in any case, I assume it is hard to treat your patients according to what you believe is helpful, if they are meanwhile taking drugs that harm them ... especially since so many psych drugs make it hard for them to make use of other kinds of approaches that are helpful and not risky.

(1) I am not sure why someone citing an article about a piece of research would feel the need to sign themselves "anonymous."
(2) I looked up the reference you posted, and it is a press release. Nowhere could I find a disclosure about whether the researchers had any financial ties to the drug companies that make neuroleptics. And since this is just a press release, it is impossible to tell from the information given whether or not it was a study that meets the standards of good scientific research. What I can say, for one (fundamental) thing is that the very writing as though there is something clearly known to be a real entity that is called schizophrenia is problematic. I urge you to read Jeffrey Poland's brilliant review of the research about what gets called schizophrenia in the book called Bias in Psychiatric Diagnosis. And I have a host of questions about how this research you cited was done, and they arise from but are not answered in that press release. It is possible that it was scrupulously scientific study -- but for the whole matter of defining schizophrenia and ascertaining how each participant in that study got the label, which is the crucial underpinning of the research -- but I cannot tell from what you sent. And since there are good studies showing that lifespan is drastically decreased by neuroleptics -- and since that is consistent with the increases in serious physical problems such as diabetes and heart problems in people who ake neuroleptics, I am not yet prepared to assume that we should accept the conclusion in that press release.

If I were to supply my full name, address, phone number, graduate degree, and IQ what difference would that make? I have no academic or financial or other interest vested in whether or not the matter at hand can or cannot be proven. What I do have is the diagnosis of schizophrenia. I have taken antipsychotics for 17 years. For a number of reasons, I feel they have given me life beyond what I could have hoped for without them. They kept me from killing myself. They made it possible for me to enjoy a book again, to use the internet, to avail myself of all sorts of press releases and treatment guidelines and studies. They made it possible for me to live independently, even after my first 2 psychiatrists told my parents to put me in a state hospital for long term care and get on with their lives. I do not pretend to have all the available data at hand...about anything except my own life and personal experience.

Psychology Today is probably not where I would look for information pertaining to science, anyway. It is often a bit of fluff aimed at the supermarket crowd. I do not doubt your credentials, Paula Caplan, Ph.D. But you must be aware that there are a variety of "good studies" that are often contradictory, and that no study can control for all factors. I am willing to take my neuroleptics with or without full disclosure from my doctor. Maybe I put too much faith in doctors, but when you have florid psychosis, perhaps "any port in a storm." I happen to find Zyprexa perfectly suited to my needs.

I understand your alarm. The solid research showing the destruction of parts of the brain by these drugs warrants alarm. What is tragic is that you feel that this news has ruined your life rather than that it might move you to consider how to avoid or minimize the harm. I gather you have not read my other essays about what to do instead.

If you were put on powerful drugs because you hear voices or have been told you are delusional, I strongly suggest that you go to the Hearing Voices Network site and get in touch with the to get some support and suggestions and help.

Whatever the reason(s) someone put you on psychotropics, you can get a lot of information and help at www.theicarusproject.net/‎ and from reading the book, Your Drug May Be Your Problem, which includes a lot of information about how to reduce or stop the drugs. If you want to send me a private message to tell me where you are located, I will see if I know of a practitioner in your area who could help.

I wish you all the best. You have undoubtedly suffered a lot, and I hope for less suffering and more support for you.

In response to this article, let me make a point that life expectancy, whether on or off psychoactive medications, is often shortened because of the course of one's illness itself. Not only is a mentally ill person at higher risk of suicide, his/her health habits are generally not the best; and heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other serious diseases lower life expectancy at least as much as (if not more than) antipsychotic drugs.

Quality of life must also be considered. Personally, I am sure I wouldn't even be here if it weren't for psychiatric medications. I'm currently on five of them, two of which are antipsychotics, and they have literally saved my life *and* made it livable. If they shorten my lifespan, so be it; I am 55 and would rather have 5 years of a decent existence than 20 of being miserable.

My wide started hearing voices a few years ago. She was suicidal. The psychologist and his team put her on 10 mg of Olanzapine. It soon stopped the voices and she was at least okay and much better than before. I was sure she was on too high a dose - she was sleeping way too much per day, perhaps 15 hours, so over time got her to 5 mg. She slept less and was much better in every way.

I researched Olanzapine and was shocked by the weight gain, and this did happen to her, the possibility of "instant death" and a million other potentially fatal things, so encouraged her to slowly go off the drug completely believing 100% that the voices were just a once off. Six months later the voices returned, and she's been suicidal again. I did research every other potential cure, but nothing worked. Now she's back on Olanzapine 5 mg, and I hope soon better, at least from the voices.

I have great love for her, and this has killed me inside seeing her suffer. I feel all her pain, and just wanted to die with her.

I know that the time may come when the side-effects show up, and I dread this happening, that's if it does.

I would have no hesitation to give my wife for her, to have her pain for her, to do anything at all. Recently, we found through an MRI she had two pancreatic IPMNs side-channel, but small, less than 1 mm. They have or may not be cancerous. She would not a survive surverg for a whipple as she's not very strong. I heard of micro-robotic surgery, but the cost is more than we have. I'm caring for her full-time now, and have a small income. The operation would cost $15K, so its out right now.

I've been praying for past 2 years every night for her. Nothing has come of that either, but I still try, probably out of desperation, if nothing else. Oh, I do believe in a higher intelligence, but I am sure that this higher intelligence does not interfere in our world or in the laws of probability, suffering and pain.

So, I'm at a lost.

Right now, it seems I was wrong to encourage her to stop taking Olanzapine, and I hate myself for this more than anything. It has caused the voices and suicidal thoughts to return as the voices won't stop. I am praying more that the drug works as before.

If only I had knowing loving someone could be so painful, I would not have wished to be born into this world. Every smile she gives fills me with joy for the whole day. That's what I life for now, and I wouldn't want it any other way.